Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:05:25 -0230 (NDT)
From: David Pike 
To: pike-dna-l@rootsweb.com
Subject: Pike DNA Project News



Hi everybody.

I've been on sabbatical leave since September and have been engaged with 
mathematical research as well as travelling to conferences and other other 
venues.  My destinations over the past year have included several 
locations in Canada and the USA, plus Turkey, Australia and most recently 
England and Scotland.  While in England a few weeks ago I was able to 
spend a few days in Bristol, where I did some research into an early Pike 
family there.  It was a real treat to be able to hold in my hands a 
document signed by Nicholas Pykes in 1624, especially since the document 
not only stated that Nicholas' father was John Pikes, but also that John's 
father was Walter, and moreover that Walter's wife was Katherine who in 
turn was identified as a daughter of Roger Cooke.  Yes, four generations 
were laid out all at once.  The document also referred to Nicholas' wife 
Margaret.  This is the same Nicholas Pykes who wrote his last will and 
testament in 1632, naming a son Walter as well as four daughters.  There 
is a birth record for Walter in the records from the Temple parish in 
Bristol, but I have not yet been able to locate a marriage record for him. 
Nevertheless I am confident that he married to Elizabeth Guy who was a 
daughter of John Guy who was instrumental in establishing a colony in 
Newfoundland in 1610.  John Guy's son Robert wrote a will in 1651 in which 
he names his brother in law Walter Pykes and his four sons (John, Walter, 
William, Thomas).  Robert also bequeaths property in Newfoundland to his 
nephew John Pykes.  This evidence of a connection with Newfoundland for 
this Pyke family at Bristol has piqued my curiosity, and raises the 
obvious question:  do any of the Pikes that now reside in Newfoundland 
descend from the Pykes at Bristol?

That's a question that I don't yet have an answer to, although it a 
suspicion that I carry.  Tracing the Bristol Pykes is something that I've 
only been able to do as far as identifying Walter and his four sons.  But 
they remain enigmatic, for I have not yet found Walter's marriage record, 
I don't know where he resided (although Bristol seems likely), nor have I 
found any record of Walter's children aside from them being mentioned in 
the will of Robert Guy and also the will of Walter's great aunt Mirabell 
Druse who died in 1645.  If, by any chance, anybody reading this message 
happens to know more about Walter and his children, please let me know.

While still on the topic of early Pikes, there was a Thomas Pike who owned 
property in Somerset in Dorset, and after his decease there appears to 
have been a dispute regarding the inheritance of his estate.  In 
particular, it appears he may have had a son Stephen or perhaps a 
pretender claiming to be his son.  Details about the ensuing Chancery case 
can be found online at a link from this page:
   http://www.uh.edu/waalt/index.php/C78_1632
My belief is that the Thomas Pike in question died about 1555, and that he 
descends from the Pike family that was associated with Moorlinch and Pikes 
Ash since the early 1300s, as noted on these webpages:
   http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol8/pp125-134
   http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol8/pp13-25
If somebody is able to transcribe the Chancery document, that would be a 
big help towards understanding the people involved and how they are 
related to one another.  And with some luck, maybe we can move a step 
closer to finding a connection with some branch of the family that still 
exists.


Moving on now to some DNA stuff, there are four test results that are new 
since our last email bulletin and which I can discuss.  The first that 
I'll mention is for the father of Merryn Pike who lives in Australia (kit 
number 567566).  Merryn tested her father for all 111 of the STR (short 
tandem repeat) markers that Family Tree DNA offers.  In terms of 
genealogy, Merryn is stuck at her great grandfather Frederick Pike who was 
born in 1872 in Gloucestershire England.  His death certificate states 
that his father was named Henry Pike, but whether this is accurate remains 
uncertain, in part because family lore states that Frederick had a brother 
George who also lived in Australia, but George's death certificate names 
his father as Samuel Pike.  Unfortunately the DNA test results have not 
provided immediate answers in this case, for no close matches were found 
with other members of our project.  So until such time as when a match is 
found, Merryn's father's results have been placed in the collection of 
ungrouped results on our webpage at 
http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=results.html#Ungrouped

Next to mention are the results for John (kit 630275) who tested 67 STR 
markers.  As had been anticipated, his results were a very strong match 
with the members of our project's "Group 5" cluster, which consists of 
descendants of Archibald Pike who was born about 1680 in St Mary County, 
Maryland.  Especially newsworthy about John's results are that John 
descends from Archibald's son John, whereas the other three members of our 
"Group 5" all descend from Archibald's son William.  So the genetic match 
that John has with the other three project members has effectively 
confirmed that their shared genetic profile can indeed be traced back and 
attributed to Archibald.  Up until now the evidence at our disposal only 
enabled us to confirm the profile back as far as Archibald's son William.

Chris (kit number 601263) also tested 67 markers, and as expected he 
matched very closely with members of our project's "Group 6" cluster, 
which involves descendants of James Pike who was an early settler at 
Charlestown Massachusetts.  Chris is now the seventh known descendant of 
James' son Jeremiah to test his Y-DNA.  One curiosity about their results 
is the variability that we are seeing with the fourth marker (the STR 
named DYS-391).  Among the seven results now on hand for Jeremiah's 
descendants, four carry a value of 12 on this marker, two carry an 11, and 
one carries a 10.  It very much looks as though this marker is 
experiencing some volatility among Jeremiah's descendants.  What looks to 
be the case is that Jeremiah himself may have experienced a mutation to 
the value of 12, but that some of his descendants subsequently experienced 
mutations that took this 12 back to the 11 that it was before Jeremiah's 
birth, and in one case a mutation has taken it further to a value of 10. 
That's one of the caveats of these STR markers:  they can sometimes mutate 
multiple times within a few generations, sometimes going up and sometimes 
down, which in turn can cause some confusion when trying to interpret what 
happened with them.  In contrast to STR markers, I'm coming to appreciate 
the much more stable nature of SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) 
markers that are the basis of the "Big Y" test and which are also key to 
confirming (and refining) Y-DNA haplogroups.

The last of the new results that I want to mention in this message is for 
kit number N21510, who happens to be my father Angus.  During sale that 
FTDNA had towards the end of 2016 I ordered a test for all 111 STRs for my 
father, and shortly afterwards I also ordered the "Big Y" test for him 
too.  We're not the first father-son pair in our project to have their 
Y-DNA tested, but we are the first pair to do this much testing. 
Regarding the results for our 111 STRs, my father's results came back 
completely identical to mine, making us the first instance of a perfect 
111-marker match within our project.  If you look at the results shown at
   http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=results.html#Group2 
for the "Group 2" cluster to which we belong you will see that on the 49th 
STR marker, I carry a value of 23 that stands out as being different from 
the 22 that has been found for all of the other group members to test this 
marker... that is, all but my father.  Prior to testing my father's DNA 
all I could say about this marker is that a mutation likely happened (from 
a value of 22 to 23) somewhere in the history of my lineage.  Having now 
tested my father's DNA, I can rule out my conception as being the one at 
which this mutation occurred.  So now it must have arisen either with my 
father's conception or with some earlier Pike ancestor (but one who lived 
after the common Pike ancestor that is shared with the other members of 
"Group 2").

Regarding the "Big Y" test, I've been working on comparing my own test 
results with those for my father.  This has not been easy since the "Big 
Y" test analyses something on the order of ten million SNP locations on 
the Y chromosome, and (for now at least) it takes some special software to 
delve into the raw data files to try to see more detail than what is 
presented via our individual FTDNA webpages.  What I can say though is 
that it looks as though I might carry one SNP mutation that my father does 
not, which is to say that this one mutation looks as though it marks my 
birth.  Given that SNP markers are *very* stable, this mutation would end 
up being shared by all of my sons, their sons and so forth (that is, if I 
ever have any sons, etc).

All members of "Group 2" (including me and my father) belong to Y-DNA 
Haplogroup R-L554 because we are all positive for the SNP named L554. 
This haplogroup is actually a subgroup of R-Z253, which is a subgroup of 
R-L21, which is a subgroup of R-M269.  There's a whole hierarchy of 
haplogroups at play here.  Until recently no subgroups of R-L554 were 
known, but thanks to the test results of me, my father, and two other men 
(with surnames Humphrey and Wilcox) in the R-L554 haplogroup, some 
structure and branching within the R-L554 haplogroup was discovered.  In 
particular, there is an early split that puts Wilcox on one side and 
Humphrey and Pike on the other.  As it happens, Humphrey and Pike share 
about four SNP mutations that Wilcox does not, and then Humphrey and Pike 
branch apart with each one having several SNP markers that the other does 
not.  The subgroup of R-L554 that is formed by the Humphrey and Pike 
branches has now been named as haplogroup R-BY14481 since the SNP that has 
now been named BY14481 is one for which Humphrey and Pike are both 
positive.  All members of "Group 2" in our Pike DNA Project can be 
reasonably predicted to also belong to this newly named R-BY14481 subgroup 
of R-L554.

It is estimated that one new SNP mutation arises about once every three 
generations.  On the one hand, this means that I may have gotten lucky 
with the mutation that appears to be unique to me.  On the other hand, 
this gives us a great way of estimating the age of branches of a family 
tree along with determining its structure (which are tasks that we've 
tried to do with the 111 STR markers, with some success, but not with as 
much success as I would have liked).  In comparison to the Humphrey 
fellow, his 111 STR results differ from my father's (and mine) by 31 
markers, which is a sufficiently substantial difference to easily conclude 
that we're not related within a genealogical time frame.  Indeed, based on 
these 31 differences, FTDNA estimates the probability of having a common 
forefather within the past 20 generations to be below one percent. 
Nevertheless, we're both within the same small R-L554 haplogroup, and now 
also its even smaller R-BY14481 subgroup.  My father's "Big Y" results 
revealed 17 SNP mutations that my father and I have but Humphrey does not. 
If, on average, one new mutation arises every third generation, then this 
would put the common ancestor of Humphrey and my father at about 51 
generations into the past, or about 1000 to 1500 years ago depending on 
how many years elapse per generation.

Some of these 17 SNP mutations that my father and I carry are most likely 
shared by all members of our project's "Group 2", particularly those 
mutations that arose shortly after the R-BY14481 subgroup formed.  These 
mutations would mark subgroups, and those within the past few hundred 
years ought to be limited to specific branches of the Pike family tree. 
If indeed there is one mutation once about every three generations, then 
piecing together the structure of our family tree becomes a real 
possibility, in contrast to the several twigs that are shown for "Group 2" 
at
   http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=results.html#Group2 
without yet being reconnected to each other.

I would like to encourage more people to do the "Big Y" test (as well as 
to test all 111 STR markers).  But I also understand that this test is 
relatively costly.  As a sort of compromise between these two scenarios, 
what I would like to propose is that we take a crowd-funding approach. 
Donations towards "Big Y" tests can be made to our project and the 
accumulated funds can then be used to pay all or part of the cost of 
performing tests on the DNA of willing project members (who would be 
selected so as to maximise the likelihood that their results would assist 
with unveiling new family tree branches and the SNP mutations that define 
them).  It would be great to have funds on hand for this purpose when 
FTDNA has its next promotion and discounts the price of its "Big Y" test. 
To make a contribution towards this initiative, you can follow this link
   http://www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/family_history/pike/DNA/index.php?content=join.html#HowToContribute 
and then follow the instructions to ensure your contribution goes to our 
Pike project.  If you wish to restrict your donation to a particular 
genetic cluster (such as "Group 2" or one of the others in our project) 
then please say so in the "Note" field on the donation form.

In the meantime, feel free to ask me or Stuart if you have any questions 
about the DNA project.

Also, one other item to mention is that Blaine Bettinger (speaker, author 
and blogger about lots of DNA stuff) is gathering information to help 
determine STR mutation rates.  If you and a close relative both have Y-DNA 
results, you should be able to participate in his study.  For more 
information, follow this link: 
http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2017/05/05/the-y-dna-mutation-rate-project/

And lastly, recordings from several DNA presentations that were given at 
the "Who Do You Think You Are -- Live" conference in Birmingham UK in 
April have recently been posted online at 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HQSiSkiy7ujlkgQER1FYw

- David.